to happen to you. when in reality, you know, bad things happen to good people all the time. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." i have a lot of guilt. it makes me sick how i could do something like that. i was the responsible one. >> a working mom, new at the office. she loved her job, and really loved her handsome young boss. >> the thing that i never wanted to face was the hurt that i was going to cause. >> a passionate 9:00 to 5:00 affair. the problem? she was married. and so was he. >> i grabbed his face and i was like, you know what? i love you.

i am not going anywhere, tell me what's happening. >> cheating husbands, scheming wives. suburbs are fill of secrets, but being unfaithful to your spouse isn't a crime, is it? that would come next. >> it was just like every emotion possible all in one second. >> i went, oh, my god! >> murder in the dark. who was behind it? and who would pay? >> when you see him on the video, he's armed and ready. >> two couples, two families, and the single moment that shattered it all. >> i knew one day that this was all going to come out. hello and welcome to "dateline." it's a cautionary tale that started with two seemingly happy couples in suburban, idaho.

their their lives collided in a triangle that ended in a showdown in a parking lot. for investigators, figuring out who fired the fatal shots meant untangling the relationships at the heart of the crime, which were complicated. here is keith morrison with "deadly desire." >> look at this place now. so ordinary. with its pharmacy, its grocery store, carefully tended parking places, so alike the suburban strip malls from bismarck to bakersfield. but that night, that cold night a heat gathered here. sweet, terrifying, doomed. >> for the longest time, i couldn't go anywhere. because i'm thinking everybody is looking at me. >> this is the story of two

married couples, how the advice they can offer others now that it's too late for them. >> i think if i could tell them anything, it would be put your family first. >> but, of course, that's not what happened. and this parking lot, there will be a body here before we're done. >> oh, my god! oh, my god! >> careful when you stir the hot pot of desire. the place is meridian, idaho, a little above boise in the foothills of majestic rockies. the perfect place, the end of the rainbow. 2006, and luck was on their side. they just moved from southern california, and they were happy. they were fulfilled at work. they had two beautiful children. they had everything they ever wanted. they were rob and kandi hall. one of those charmed couple

who's had fallen in love at first sight in this case, first sight meant admiring each other in the gym. >> we went out that weekend and then we never stopped. >> what was it about that relationship? what was it about him that was so good? >> we just connected instantly. >> by the time rob and kandi moved to idaho, they had been together for years. had two teenage daughters. rob landed an excellent job as a as a computer job as a computer specialist at the ada county sheriff's office. specializing in vehicle locators inside squad cars. >> he loved every minute of his job. >> and as if it was a sign, kandi's career as a paralegal took off too a natural, could and did sell her confidence and skills to anybody who walked in the door. >> it didn't hurt that she was pretty. >>. >> reporter: no, it didn't and her coworker idolized her. you became close? reporter: no, her coworker idolized her. you became close? >> we became very close. she was just like a mother to

me. >> reporter: it was all just about >> he just started to cry. and he said i'm having an affair. and i laid my head on his chest and i said, rob, please, just fix it. >> reporter: you didn't get upset, didn't yell, scream, cry, do anything? >> that's what shocked him. you know, the typical response is get the hell out. >> reporter: throw the clothes out the window. >> and then late one night, rob lay down beside his wife in bed and it all came tumbling out. >> he just started to cry and he said, i'm having an affair. and i laid my head on his chest

and i said, rob, please, just fix it. >> so you didn't get upset? you didn't yell, you didn't scream, you didn't cry, you didn't do anything? >> that's what shocked him. you know, the typical response is get the hell out of here. >> throw the clothes out the window. >> oh, no. the last person on this planet you would think to have an affair would be robert. >> reporter: but, of course, it was devastating, crippling. every day she went to work, and every day sofia saw her friend turn herself inside out and seemed to wither. >> i watched her go through misery, sobbing in her hands daily and try to figure out what this woman had that she didn't. >> reporter: did she still love him? >> yes. dearly.

>> reporter: and wanted the marriage to continue in spite of the affair? >> yes, she did. she didn't want to believe in her head she felt something in this woman that wasn't in kandi. >> reporter: he felt bad about it, agreed to go through counseling with kandi. but -- after he confessed and you said fix it, he didn't. >> he didn't know what he wanted. >> reporter: come on. he wanted to keep going with the affair, that's what he wanted. >> i for sure told him to stop. >> reporter: stop right now or i'll stamp my foot and hold my breath. and he kept doing it. >> it was my fault. he a void because of me. that's what i thought. >> reporter: what do you think the void might have been? >> i just was boring. >> reporter: boring old kandi hall, rejected, apparently unlovable, and nearly 40. and then one day at work, kandi was introduced to a recent law school graduate, looking to staff his new office. a boyishly handsome, smart as a whip, cocky young lawyer. his name was emmett corrigan. >> my friend, she said, emmett, have you got to met kandi. i mean, she's just as passionate and aggressive as you are, and she would be great for you. >> reporter: and something suddenly lifted in kandi hall. by the time those words had left her friend's mouth, kandi knew, she just knew.

>> when we come back, kandi hall has a decision to make and it will have consequences she never intended. deadly ones. coming up -- three unfaithful spouses and their lies are piling up. >> i could hear everything he was saying because the baby monitor was on. the hard part then was not a word he said was true. a word he said was true. ile? who's ready to learn today!? so powerful you can face anything. even these faces. invis is a powerful thing. invis is the clear aligner brand most trusted by doctors... and more predictable. invisalign. alice loves the scent of gain so much, she wished there was a way to make it last longer. say hello to your fairy godmother alice and long-lasting gain scent beads. part of the irresistible scent collection from gain!

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>> reporter: in boise, idaho, inside this law office in the fall of 2010, with a paralegal whose charged life was falling apart. kandi hall was an unhappy woman, her marriage was dying or dead, her 40th birthday was bearing down like a chinese bullet train and then one day it got worse. kandi's boss told her she was also unemployed. my husband is having an affair, now my attorney who i work for has fired me. >> yep. pretty low. >> reporter: that's problems. and then there was him. emmett corrigan fixed everything. he was handsome and he thought she was gorgeous. and, of course, he hired her right away for his new law

office, and, well, you know what came next. racy e-mails, spicy text messages. >> i would like to be put on that pedestal and emmett made me feel that way. pretty much of an ego boost for me. >> reporter: she really wasn't trying to get back at her husband, said kandi, at least not consciously. >> i was thinking about me and only me. you know what? it made me feel good, made me feel like i was on top of the world. >> reporter: sitting here now, is kandi still thinking only of kandi? perhaps as you hear the rest of the story, you could be the judge of that. anyway, back then there were a few hitches in kandi's new found fantasy life. we start with emmett corrigan was also married and lived in this quiet cul-de-sac, just a couple of miles from kandi with this woman. his wife, ashley. >> he was just a guy that everybody wanted to be around. >> reporter: enthusiastic, full of energy? >> sometimes too much energy,

but that's kind of one of the things i loved about him. >> reporter: just like kandi and rob, ashley and emmett met in a gym. in college in utah in 2003. also inseparable from that moment on. and they certainly made a striking young couple. they were married after just six months together, made their vows before god and the church in the lds temple. >> you know what? i think i'm ready to be a parent. >> reporter: first game twin girls, followed soon by a son and another daughter. >> he loved being a dad as much as i loved being a mom. >> reporter: in the winter, skiing and sledding. in the summer they camped and swam at the lake they so loved. made memories, ashley never doubted this was how their life was supposed to be. she was pregnant with her fifth child when her ambitious husband opened his law office that fall

of 2010. and made the fateful decision to hire a paralegal named kandi hall. not that he had any his fate, anymore than his wife ashley understood his private motivations. did you suspect she was involved with emmett? >> with emmett? no. >> reporter: why? >> the way he described her was an older woman who he looked up to in motherly way. she believed in me, thinks i'm going to be a great lawyer. >> reporter: she was an older woman. >> she was almost 40 and i was 28, so it wasn't something that i felt a competition i guess. >> reporter: that is one of the reasons that many who plainly escape that aren't seated in the hot stove of desire themselves. emmett and kandi thought otherwise. they tried to keep their hands off a while, but if they believed they were hiding their obvious infatuation, messy hair, hastily rearranged clothes, they were only fooling themselves.

>> i noticed a significant change in her attitude. went from being depressed about what rob had done to happy. >> reporter: spring in her step again. >> oh, yeah. >> reporter: that's timing. now that rob wanted to seem to fix their marriage, kandi became a study in pretense. honesty took a holiday. >> i was living a lie. being in an affair is being in one big lie. you lie about everything. >> reporter: yes. and she lied to herself too. you were thinking of you and he together, striding across the bow of the "titanic." this is going to be it for you forever. >> yes. >> reporter: and one night a couple of months into the affair, events ticked measurably toward the deadly conclusion. around bedtime, kandi received a text from emmett and couldn't hide it. >> the text popped up and rob read it, and it said i wish i was there with you tonight.

>> reporter: what did he say? >> he was angry. kandi, what is this? i said i don't know. so he calls emmett. why are you texting my wife at this time of night? >> reporter: emmett's answer, two minutes later, he showed up at rob's house, they talked like dueling lovers on the sidewalk, then rob came back inside. >> rob tossed my phone up on our bed and he said you win. i can't compete. he's young. he's good looking guy. an attorney. you make him a lot of money. what good am i? it was just devastating. >> reporter: now you got yourself a pretty complicated life at this stage? >> yeah. >> reporter: of course, that is february 2011. emmett's life was complicated too. ashley could see how stressed he was, didn't understand it. that or why he seemed to avoid coming home.

>> there was one time when my son asked me if he lived with us anymore. and we were in the bedroom, what's that all about? and i was like, well, we miss you. and he just kind of yelled and screamed and left. >> reporter: ashley thought maybe it was her fault. she went to marriage counseling, emmett refused to go. >> i had felt really pushed away, and was trying to find an answer and tried to surprise him by cleaning out his car and found a weird envelope. >> reporter: a weird envelope? >> just an envelope with some sort of pill. i researched online and one of the side effects was problems with intimacy and sexuality, and i thought maybe if he was doing that, that that could explain why he didn't necessarily want me. >> reporter: did you take it personally too, though? >> you want to be everything. it was hard not to take personal.

>> reporter: especially when emmett, who had been working out more and more, announced he was going to a fitness competition in ohio on their wedding anniversary. what did that feel like? >> lonely. he calls and said happy anniversary. i'll call you later, but didn't call back. and the night before he came home, my oldest son, who was -- he had just turned four, was screaming one night for probably two hours, my dad is going to die, my dad is going to die. and i just held him, tried calling him, but never answered his phone. it was a very strange weekend. >> reporter: strange? strange is not a big enough word to describe what is about to happen. >> coming up -- >> a secret meeting at walgreens, and something goes horribly wrong. >> i said no i'm not doing this.

and he said, oh, we are doing this. >> when "dateline" continues.

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and we'll help cover your costs to switch. only from verizon. it was the 11th of march, 2011. this was it, the big event, d-day, you could say. it was early evening, cold as the sun went down in meridian, cold and bleak, and at two homes

in particular, it was very bleak indeed. kandi hall arrived home from work to find her husband rob packing boxes. to leave? what other reason could there be? >> i know we were probably coming down to the wire. >> reporter: are you having the kind of unfair fights that married couples have all the time. betray each other with abandon and wonder why it doesn't work out. >> the thing i never wanted to face was the hurt i was going to cause on so many people. i knew one day that this was all going to come out. that the way that -- usually ends up. >> reporter: well, now you can only look back and wish it had turned out that way. >> right. >> reporter: around the same time across town, perhaps two miles away, ashley corrigan just made the mistake of telling her husband emmet that in her

desperate state of worry, she'd asked her family members to pray for them. >> he said your family? i hate your family. i could beat your brother up, i could kill all of you. and i grabbed his face and i said, you know what? i love you. i'm not going anywhere. i don't care what it is. just tell me what's happening. and i don't know. i felt like that was the last chance, and he didn't take it. he didn't open up about anything. >> reporter: that night, though, a trusted family member who had agreed to help counsel the couple called, and emmett answered the phone. >> he went back into the bedroom and i could hear everything he was saying because i had the baby monitor on. everything he was saying was not true. >> reporter: what did he say? >> i flipped the baby monitor, and i said, oh, how did it go? it went good. he thinks i'm as crazy as i do.

and i said do a get a turn? he said i don't care what you do, but you're not using my phone. and emmet said, hey, i'm going to run to walgreens, and i'll be right back. i put the phone down. i literally was like emmett, please do not leave. and he said no. i'm leaving. >> reporter: you must have felt like your life was falling apart and you didn't know what to do. >> i kind of felt maybe this was a grand finale. >> reporter: he needed a wakeup call. >> he needed a wakeup call. >> reporter: be careful what you wish for. over at the hall house, kandi had been talking to her husband, rob. maybe he shouldn't move out. maybe they should try to fix their marriage, make it work somehow. and then right in the middle of that, she suddenly told him she had an errand to run, couldn't wait. guess where? >> i said i need to go to k walgreens.

i'm just going to go through the drive through. i'll be right back. >> reporter: here is kandi's explanation for the way the meeting with the lover was arranged. >> as i was pulling out of back of my driveway, emmett said, hey, what are you doing? i said i'm going to walgreens. he said i was just there. hey, meet me there. >> reporter: what happened next, watch it on surveillance tape. >> and i go to walgreens, go through the drive through, and i pull around and park my car. he pulls up, and i get in his truck and we go to fred meyer. >> reporter: getting gas at fred meyer when emmett opened the truck's rear door. >> he pulls out all of these prescription bottles. i said what are you taking? if you don't want to grow a penis don't take it. he got back in the truck and we drove off. >> reporter: kandi and emmett pulled into a secluded spot, and had sex under a streetlight, and tangled up in each other when kandi's phone rang.

her daughter coming home from a date had seen her car in that parking lot. she said, mom, why is your car at walgreens? i called dad. all right. okay. i'll be home in a minute. >> reporter: too late. because now the wind was up, rob, the unfaithful husband, had to know now he was the aggrieved spouse. sure enough, as kandi talked to her daughter, here he was in his pickup truck come to walgreens to look for his wife. >> phone call from rob. he said are you with emmitt? i took a deep breath and i said, yep, i am. emmett looks over at me, takes the phone away from me and he goes, yeah, what's up, chief? and he says, yeah, wait right there. we'll be right there. you wait right there. and that's when i said, no, knock it off. we're not doing this. and he's like oh, we are doing

this. >> reporter: there are moments in life when big choices are made. this was not a good one. >> coming up -- a late-night rendezvous turns deadly. >> and i went -- oh, my gosh. i will never forget. ever. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues trusted by pet owners for over 20 years frontline® plus is the #1 name in flea and tick protection. with frontline, you and your pet can go anywhere... ♪♪

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it's the highest levels since world war ii. now back to "dateline." >> welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. for months, kandi hall and emmet crigan had been having a late night affair. they was in emmet's pickup truck when kandi's husband called. and her young lover confronted him. soon, one of them would be dead. here is keith morrison with "deadly desire." >> here at a walgreens drugstore in meridian, idaho, just before 10:00 p.m. on a friday night in march 2011, robert hall was a man on a mission. you can see it from store video. rob parked his pickup truck, roamed the beauty and cosmetic aisles. he was looking for kandi, also in a pickup truck, with her

lover, emmett. here, you can see rob leaving the store, looking at kandi's parked bmw and strangely, getting back into his own pickup truck, pulling out and then reparking it on the other side of kandi's car. curiously, his door now just out of range of the store surveillance camera. this is when he made that phone call. the one in which kandi confessed she had been with her boss, emmett corrigan. and he said what's up, chief? and here is emmett's truck speeding through the parking lot. still time to stop this if wiser heads had been in charge. but they weren't. nothing wise about what's coming. >> i see rob in his truck, and he has just this look on his face, like, oh, man. and i get out of truck, then emmett gets out and then rob gets out. walks over to us. >> reporter: this is just the

sort of moment in which a person might have wanted to cool the overheated atmosphere. control the spitting anger. but had chosen words carefully. that is not what happened. >> rob was standing next to me and he's like what are you doing out with my wife at 10:00 at night? and emmett said, she doesn't want to be with i anymore. she's done what did you make last year? 40,000? what did we make last week? $27,000, in one week. in one week, rob. that's how much i make. you don't make anything. >> reporter: nasty, arrogant, like a selfish young buck. >> rob said what about your kids and your wife? she just had a baby. they are at home waiting for you, and you are out with my wife. and at that moment, emmett's eyes got huge and he pushed himself off his truck and went over to rob and pushed rob, very hard, on his chest. >> reporter: and then the

climax. the confrontation that had been building for weeks. >> that's when i said, enough! that's enough! you get in your truck and rob we got to go! and as i was walking to my car, another car came by, and i had to stop, and at that point, i hear pop, pop, pop. i didn't know what it was. i didn't know if the car just backfired? i had no idea. and i stopped and i went -- what was that? and all i see in my peripheral vision is rob covered in blood, like someone poured a can of red blood all over him and i went oh! >> reporter: frantically, kandi's fingers somehow found the numbers, 911. >> oh, my god, oh, my god! robert, robert, robert, robert. >> reporter: the pistol went flying somehow, no one disputes that. there it was lying on the pavement between two men.

both shot. one alive, one dying. and kandi hall entered that twilight zone where memories are made that can't ever be erased. though as you and the police department, the lawyers and the judge will soon see, they can certainly be amended. what we know for sure, she rushed to the pros straight body of one of those two men. >> i gave him a kiss on his cheek and will never forget, ever. he took that last deep -- very surreal, and was turning gray here to here to here. i didn't have much time to think of much, other than thinking to myself, oh, my god. he's -- he's dead. >> reporter: but which one? and what just happened?

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we hey, you wanna get. out of here? ah ha. we've got you. during expedia travel week, save 20% or more on thousands of hotels. expedia. it matters who you travel with. ashley corrigan did not go to sleep after her angry husband announced he was going to the walgreens drugstore in meridian, idaho, so she was up at 1:00 in the morning when the police came. emmett was dead they told her.

killed by his lover's husband. and ashley entered a twilight zone of her own. >> it was like the ultimate humiliation. not only is your husband gone, but that marriage you were trying so hard to save, here is all of the answers as to why it was going wrong, but now you don't have a marriage to save anymore. it was like every emotion possible. i went through a divorce and a death all in one second. >> reporter: bizarre. >> and then i had to get prepared to tell my kids. and what story do you tell little kids? well, there's been an accident and your daddy won't be on the earth with you anymore. they just stared at me like what are we supposed to do now? >> reporter: what now indeed? and that very moment, a few miles away, rob hall was in the hospital bed, recovering from a grazing gunshot wound to his head, the result police said of a botched suicide attempt.

after rob put two bullets from his semi automatic pistol into emmett corrigan, one in his heart, one in his head. and over at the meridian police station, kandi hall, her clothes still covered in blood, was telling the first of several different versions of what happened in the parking lot. quite unprepared, of course, for the public torrent about to come down on her head. suddenly you are thrust into the public eye, big time. >> yes. >> reporter: as a jezebel, a woman at the center of a tawdry love triangle. what is that like for you? >> it's scary. for the longest time, i couldn't go to the grocery store. i couldn't go anywhere. because i'm thinking everybody is looking at me.

everybody know who's i am. >> reporter: everybody knows what i did. >> yes. it did happen, and i own it. >> reporter: there is something else that happened. although on the night of the shooting, kandi rushed to kiss her dying lover, she rather soon was back in her husband's corner as his chief supporter, especially when robert hall was charged with premeditated first degree murder. >> we felt that the evidence supported that he planned to go to that walgreens and do exactly what he did when he got there. >> reporter: this was no sudden crime of passion, said the prosecutors. idaho deputy attorney general jessica lorello and jason spillman. >> this is a case of a man hunting down his wife's paramour and waiting for 17 minutes to have the opportunity to kill him. >> thank you, your honor. >> reporter: in fact, as they made the case for the jury, prosecutors portrayed rob as an

angry man. furious about his wife's affair. a man who called emmett's law office repeatedly to berate kandi so loudly that others heard it all. >> statements, such as, you're a whore, and why are you with him? >> reporter: and the night of the shooting, prosecutors played those surveillance tapes from walgreens, showing rob arriving at the drugstore, 17 minutes before the confrontation. walking through the aisles, looking for kandi. all the while with a pistol, not the one he usually carried, but the one kandi gave him, tucked in his pocket. then the jury saw emmett and kandi arrive in the parking lot. eight minutes later, heard the 911 call after shots were fired. >> oh, my god. oh, my god, robert, robert, robert, robert! >> reporter: what happened? the prosecutor said the secrets of the shots told the story. two quick shots, a pause, and then one more. >> our theory all along was that rob hall had executed emmett corrigan with two successive shots, turned to face his wife,

attempted to commit suicide with the third shot. >> reporter: the theory backed up by forensics. the shots were fired from close range, two or three feet. a heavy concentration of gunshot residue only on robert hall's hands, and only one man's dna on the trigger guard. >> the dna matched mr. hall. >> i think mr. hall went to the walgreens in order to confront emmett corrigan, that he took a loaded gun, and rob decided that was his opportunity to get his kandi back. by killing emmett. >> reporter: why did he talk to emmett for eight minutes before he fired? the store was closing said the prosecutor. people were going home. >> i think he waited until there were no eyewitnesss and he executed emmett corrigan. >> reporter: a neat and tidy

theory agreed the defense, but completely wrong. rob was a nice guy, said the and it was emmett out of control. who kept amphetamines and steroids in his pickup truck, drugs with serious side effects. >> he had hyper irritability and as well impulsiveness, explosive temper. >> reporter: what really happened? rob didn't testify. a doctor backed his claim that because of his head wound, he simply couldn't remember. so the defense offered a theory that emmett started the fight, then the gun fell on the ground, emmett got the gun, shot rob and emmett shot back in self-defense. and the courtroom came to a halt. every head turned when a star witness took the stand to support that theory.

>> will you please state and spell your name for the record? >> sure, kandi hall. >> reporter: kandi, who repeated the story on the stand that she told us of emmett pushing rob, emmett becoming enraged, of hearing the two men scuffle as she walked away. before she heard, but did not see the shooting. the only problem? she told the police a very different story the night it happened. >> that night you said you did not see or hear this altercation? is that right? >> i don't know. i don't remember. >> reporter: in fact, kandi changed her story about so many things, all helpful to rob's case. >> i'm trying to clarify that your story has changed after speaking with your husband? things were remembered after talking to my husband. >> reporter: in fact, later, the judge made a comment outside the jury's presence. >> he said in all of his 30-some years on the bench, he had never seen a witness so thoroughly

discredited. >> reporter: before she left the witness stand, kandi expressed her love and sorrow to the man she cheated on, yet still loved. >> he knew, and he still knows in his heart, that i never stopped loving him. you just don't stop loving someone. >> reporter: and watching it all, emmett's wife, ashley. you watched as kandi testified and what was that like? >> it's hard to hear her tell her husband how sorry she was and how much she loved him. ultimately, it was because of them i didn't get that chance. >> reporter: and rob hall's version of events? he's about to tell you, the first time he has spoken of this. but, first, it's up to the jury to determine the wages of sin. >> coming up --

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once he had everything he wanted, before he and his wife scratched the itch of wanting more and now a jury was about to

tell robert hall whether for the rest of his life he'd have anything at all. he'd have a small advantage over the jury. hall did not testify, but he talked to us. his first ever interview to tell us he was sorry what happened, but also to tell us it wasn't his fault. >> the notion i brought a gun there to gun down ema cordon. i didn't bring a gun there to gun down emt cord on. >> that he wasn't sure emmitt was having an affair with candy. >> i don't think i made four steps before i hit the ground. when i hit the ground first of all my cellphone hit the ground and i looked over and it was my gun. he reached down, grabbed my gun

and we struggled over it. last thing i remember was the gun pointed at my head and the feeling of being hit up side the head with a baseball bat and i remember seeing everything black and gray, and that's all i remember until sunday in the hospital. >> and that moment of extreme anger and passion, crazy things happen and you're asking us to believe that the crazy thing that happened started when you get shot, when he pulled the trigger. >> yeah. >> and then you must have taken the gun and fired two shots at him. of course he had a hole through his heart and one in his head which sounds like those were targeted shots. is it possible you shot him and then decided you were going to shoot yourself? >> no, absolutely not. i've never been suicidal. >> the jury did hear the defense

case, of course, just not robert's version of it. but it was enough for a verdict. >> is robert dean hall guilty or not guilty of first degree murder, not guilty. >> not guilty, hearts rose and fell. but then -- not so fast. >> is robert dean hall guilty or not guilty of second degree murder, guilty. >> guilty of murder. not premeditation per se what of an attempt to kill and a disregard of human life. rob hall looked like he'd been punch in his stomach. all he would be sentenced to 20 years in prison. he'd be eligible for patrol in 2028, just before his 60th birthday. as we sit here now convicted of intentional murder, you're not taking responsibility for that.

>> as murder, no. >> you're saying the architect of this tragedy is more emmitt cordon than you. >> yes. >> and so you sitting in prison for the next god knows how many years are as much a victim as anybody else. >> it's devastating. i wish i'd never gone there that night to get my wife. >> or if you went that somehow you'd, like, not taken your gun along. >> i think i do a what if game on that, and then i think what if he would have pounded my face into the cement and not stopped and then people would say why didn't he have his gun with him. >> and thus you encountered one of the elements of classic tragedy. the thing you buy to protect yourself was the thing you used to destroy yourself. >> yeah.

>> another common thing that played in your jail cell late at night. >> yeah. >> he also thinks about his two daughters. their graduations, triumphs, marriages, children. he'll never witness. two girls who were the ages of 18 and 14 back then suddenly found themselves left with neither parent in the home because of this final story. rob's wife candy was sent to prison herself. because of the killing? no. she pleaded guilty to charges of grand theft for embedling some $30,000 from the attorney who she worked before, emmitt corigan. she served 18 months for that. before she went to prison she talked to us about regret. >> i have a lot of guilt for me, a lot. and it has to do with his kids

and my kids and it makes me sick how i could do something like that. i am the responsible one, and it's something i don't know are they ever going to be able to get through that? i mean hopefully one day i can prove to them it was just a mistake. >> in the years since ashley has remarried and has become an author, blogger and speaker with a message to stand strong and faithful -- >> i think there's thousands of people in this country hat come to those cross roads and don't know what to do, but i think if i can tell them anything it would be put your family first. i guess i'd like to say to rob, he had five kids. couldn't this be something you pictured as you held up the gun and targeted at his head and heart? >> one in meridian, idaho, for

two happy, successful families wasn't quite enough for some of them. and the wreckage is forever. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. first up on msnbc, deep divide over the capitol hill riot. senate republicans rejecting pleas from the mother of fallen capitol hill police officer brian sicknick and blocking a commission to investigate the deadliest attack on congress in centuries. >> the republican minority just prevented the american people from getting the full truth about january 6th. donald trump's big lie has now fully enveloped the republican party. another cyber attack against the u.s. government